In The Denver Gazette, Mark Samuelson reports that Colorado’s drive to “force” affordability through state mandates is not delivering lower prices. Builders interviewed say the medicine does not match the ailment, even as Colorado drags suburban cities into court over compliance. Median home price sits at about $550,000, keeping Colorado among the least affordable states.
Samuelson highlights industry voices who argue that cost drivers the Legislature ignores still dominate the math. One veteran, Randy Carpenter, puts it bluntly: every $1,000 added to a home’s price knocks roughly 1,300 Coloradans out of the market. The upshot: pushing density from the Capitol without fixing the actual cost stack does not hand working families a house key.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Median price near $550,000. Colorado ranks among the least affordable. That is not a plan. That is a warning label.
- State is suing suburbs over compliance with its housing playbook. Courtrooms are not carpenters.
- Builders say the mandates do not treat what truly drives costs. Rules pile up. Prices follow.
- Randy Carpenter: add $1,000 to price, and 1,300 Coloradans are priced out. That is the affordability cliff.
- Takeaway from pros: without attacking costs head-on, higher density by decree does not equal “affordable.”
My Bottom Line
This is what happens when the state tries to outsmart the free market. For seven years, Democrats under Gov. Polis have acted like central planners with a megaphone. They slap feel-good mandates on cities, sue when locals push back, then wonder why prices still climb. Next session they will likely come for more local land-use authority, because nothing says “affordable housing” like Denver telling Weld County where to put the driveway.
Here is the fix. Get government out of the market’s hair. Make government small. Clear the permitting choke points. Cut the regulatory barnacles. And pass real construction defects reform so trial lawyers stop turning condos into a courtroom roulette wheel. You want your kid to buy a starter home? Stop making it a legal hazard to build one. This is not hard. The hard part is convincing the socialists under the gold dome that more government is not the answer.
Source: The Denver Gazette
